


Send a Flare Up

by Helholden



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Alternate Universe, Desert Island Fic, F/M, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 02:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2212044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy leaned in close to her. “Wake up, princess. Nobody’s coming for us.”</p><p>Written for a tumblr prompt — ‘Castaway’ AU of Bellamy and Clarke after a shipwreck or plane crash, trying to survive on a deserted island.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Send a Flare Up

* * *

 

Clarke woke up to the sound of screams. She opened her eyes to a dizzying world of too bright skies and a green palm tree hanging over her head. She raised herself from the ground, realizing she was lying in sand on a beach somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

 

Well, wasn’t this just great.

 

Pushing herself further upright, she glanced around to get a better bearing on her surroundings. Kids were running to and fro across the sand, kicking it up as they went, towards a bonfire in the distance. It took Clarke a moment to realize they were building a fire to be seen. She stood up, brushed the sand off her arms and pants, and looked behind herself.

 

Their plane had crashed in a smoking pile of rubble, and she gaped at the sight before her. It was a miracle she was even still alive. How were any of them alive? She whirled her head around to look for more answers to the burgeoning questions in her brain—and found herself face to face with one of the other passengers from the plane.

 

He was a tall, dark, and older than her. He had a gleam in his eye and a scowl on his face. He was holding pieces of dead wood in the crook of his arm, and suddenly, without warning, he shoved one of them at her.

 

“Take one, princess,” he said with a sneer. He looked her up and down, but there was no appreciation in the look. “You’re gonna need to get your hands dirty if you want to survive.”

 

Clarke frowned at him, snatching the piece of wood. “What happened?” she asked immediately. It was the first thing that came to her mind.

 

He snorted and turned away, beginning to walk towards the bonfire. It was broad daylight, and Clarke thought they should have set it at night. Would anyone see a bonfire in the bright light of day from a plane? Not only that, but he had a gun slung over his back. Clarke wondered where he got that from, too.

 

“The plane crashed,” he called out to her, “or are you blind as well as useless?”

 

“I can _see_ that,” Clarke snapped, hurrying to catch up with him. “But _how_?”

 

“How am I supposed to know?” he said. “One moment, I was going back to my seat, and the next moment it was like we hit turbulence and the damn thing went haywire—”

 

“Were you awake for it?”

 

He stopped, and Clarke bumped right into his back. She didn’t apologize, but she stepped back, and slowly, he turned around.

 

“The plane crashed,” he said flatly, “and no amount of talking about it is going to change that. So, grab a branch. We’ve got a fire to build.”

 

He turned away from her and stalked towards the bonfire. Clarke helplessly looked down at the branch in her hands and back to the wreckage.

 

But no amount of arguing about it was going to change what had happened, like he said, so Clarke set her jaw and got to work like the rest of them.

 

-

 

Five days after the crash, Bellamy—that was his name—decided he was fit enough to rule the group. He had gathered a crew of the toughest boys and used them to enforce his brand of rules. People weren’t allowed to eat unless they contributed to building a shelter for them to hide against the elements, and Bellamy himself oversaw the work but did little when it came to actually building it.

 

When a fight broke out between two tired boys, Bellamy grinned and threw two knives in between them. That was when Clarke finally intervened.

 

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” she shouted, stepping before the crowd.

 

They fell silent, and the boys froze as she spoke, letting go of one another.

 

“We’re stranded on a deserted island,” Clarke hollered above their heads, “and you want to fight each other like _animals_? We should be working together!” She pointed at Bellamy. “Why are you even listening to him? You’re better than this! _We’re_ better than this. We need to get off this island, and we need to work together to do that—”

 

Bellamy stepped forward, speaking above her. “We’ve been trying to get off this island,” Bellamy called over the crowd, “but has anyone come for us? We’re on our own right now, and the best we can do is learn to survive. And hey, we might as well have a little fun while we’re at it, huh?”

 

Clarke could hear the cheers of agreement, low at first, but growing louder.

 

“We aren’t weak!” Bellamy yelled to them. “We’re strong! And we can prove that, can’t we? We can show the world what we’re made of when we get off this island, but we won’t get off of it if we act like _she_ wants us to act! We won’t survive!”

 

The cheers grew infinitely louder until Clarke felt surrounded by them. They were closing in around her, and no one was listening to her.

 

“We’re strong!” Bellamy hollered. “ _We aren’t weak!_ ”

 

Everyone raised their arms into the air, and Clarke knew her words were futile. The fight didn’t pick up again, but Bellamy’s army didn’t falter either. Each day, they worked harder to please him.

 

Each day, Clarke prayed a rescue would come and take them all home.

 

-

 

It had been weeks since the crash, and Clarke was sitting on a rock in the hills behind the beach as she shaved a strong branch down to a fine point on one end. The location gave her a vantage point over the water. Everyday, she looked for ships on the horizon or planes in the sky, but most days all she saw were clouds in either of them.

 

“All alone, princess?” came a voice from behind her. Clarke paused, feeling the corner of her mouth turn down.

 

She went back to shaving the branch. “You’re one to talk,” she said.

 

He came through the brush, not trying to be quiet now. She knew he had snuck up on her. Bellamy liked to keep an eye on her. He had ever since he saved her from that fall.

 

He walked over to her side, but he didn’t sit down.

 

“Why do you always come here?” he asked her.

 

“Peace and quiet,” Clarke snapped. She paused, putting down the branch but not the knife. “Things I can’t get when you’re around.”

 

“Oh, c’mon,” Bellamy threw back. “That’s not why you come out here.” He was quiet for a second, and then he moved to take a seat beside her. “You’re hoping someone will come for us still, aren’t you?”

 

Clarke raised her eyes to the horizon. Under the onset of dusk, the blue was darkening to night. The beach was lined with torches that glowed orange, flitting in the breeze, and she thought about the wide world beyond this island. Everything they knew had been stripped from them, and survival had become their only way of life.

 

Her hair was matted and tangled. Her clothes, ripped and muddy. She hadn’t had a bath in days. Sometimes she snuck down to the lake for a dive, but it wasn’t often that she had a chance to go there, and carrying water back that wasn’t only just enough to drink wasn’t possible yet.

 

She had one blanket to sleep on at night, and more often than not, she woke up with bugs crawling on her.

 

“They’ll come,” Clarke echoed distantly, her mind faraway from the present. “Eventually, someone will come.”

 

Bellamy leaned in close to her. “Wake up, princess. Nobody’s coming for us.”

 

He got up and made his way to the brush. Clarke heard him pause before he disappeared into the foliage, and when the sound of his shuffling was gone, she went back to sharpening the branch more vehemently this time.

 

-

 

They had descended into panic and chaos in such a short time. Clarke only just managed to place herself between Bellamy and Murphy as the latter pulled a knife on an unarmed Bellamy. She never considered herself in a position to care about what happened to Bellamy, but Clarke wasn’t letting anyone else die today.

 

“Put the knife down, Murphy,” she insisted, holding out her hand as a warning for them to stop. She had her spear strapped to her back, but there was a knife in her pocket. Her mother had been a surgeon, and Clarke knew how to use it. She didn’t want to, but she knew how.

 

“He _hanged_ me,” Murphy hollered in his rage, pointing the knife at Bellamy. “Did you really think I’d let it go?”

 

“You’re going to have to,” Clarke told him calmly. “It was a mistake, Murphy. We know that now, and it won’t happen again—”

 

“You’re damn right it won’t happen again,” Murphy said, and before she could react, he dove at Bellamy with the knife.

 

They struggled until Bellamy got on top of Murphy, knocking the knife out of his hands. Bellamy swung punch after punch until Clarke grabbed him from behind, pulling him off of Murphy. She was yelling for them to stop it, to stop it all, but she barely heard her own voice.

 

They banished Murphy that night, sending him off into the woods alone.

 

Clarke felt somewhere in her heart that it was a bad decision, but what was done was done. There was no coming back from it now. Wells was gone, and Charlotte was gone.

 

As she walked back to her tent, she wiped her hand over her forehead and tried not to cry.

 

“Hey, Clarke—”

 

It was Bellamy. His hand stopped her, touching her arm.

 

Clarke stilled in place.

 

She turned around to face him. He looked like a panic-stricken child, covered in sweat and shame, his unruly hair matted against his forehead. Never did he look so vulnerable as he did in that moment, and Clarke resigned herself to being the strong one.

 

“Yeah?” she asked him.

 

Bellamy was hesitant. “Thank you,” he finally said. “For what you did, for me.”

 

Clarke swallowed against a lump in her throat. “I didn’t do it for you,” she said, but that was a lie. “I did it for the group.”

 

And while some part of that was true, some part of it was also a lie. She knew that, and he knew it, too.

 

-

 

They were sharpening their weapons together. Weapons they used for hunting, not hurting each other. The rules had changed as of late now that Bellamy and Clarke stood together instead of apart. The group respected them both as their leaders because Bellamy told them to. They used to turn their back on her advice because Bellamy did, but it wasn’t like that anymore.

 

In the middle of their silent work, Bellamy paused. He held his knife aloft, and Clarke looked up. His face was remote, and he lifted it to the ocean.

 

“Do you think anyone will ever come for us?” Bellamy asked her.

 

Clarke wanted to say _yes_ , but she shrugged her shoulders instead. “I think we’re on our own out here,” she answered him. She continued carving the wood until she heard Bellamy speak up.

 

“No,” he said, “I don’t think we’re on our own anymore.”

 

Clarke paused, hearing the admission in his answer, and lowered her eyes.

 

She felt the corner of her mouth form a small smile, and then she went back to work with her knife.

 

-

 

After a meeting in which they spoke to everyone in the group, Clarke made her way back to her tent. Bellamy followed her. They spent more time together now that they were basically co-leaders over the group of survivors. Some of the younger kids made jokes that they were king and queen, but Clarke never let it get to her head.

 

She did this to help people. She didn’t do it for any other reason.

 

Bellamy pushed past the flap and entered the tent behind her. Clarke didn’t even think about it. Some of them went down to the lake and bathed together in groups, so undressing in front of him wasn’t a problem for her. Bellamy had never looked at her in that way, anyway.

 

She tore off her shirt, grabbed a clean one to pull on, and turned to face him as she straightened it out.

 

Bellamy’s eyes were fixated lower than her face.

 

Clarke gave him a look. “Really, Bellamy?”

 

Bellamy looked up quickly. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Really, Clarke?” he threw back.

 

She placed her hands on her hips. “Has it been that long since you’ve since a naked girl?”

 

“You weren’t naked,” he said. “You had a bra on.”

 

Clarke reached behind her shirt and undid the clasp, removing her bra without taking off her shirt. “Now I don’t,” she said pointedly. She had no idea why she did it. They always challenged each other, and for some reason, this didn’t feel any different than that, only it did.

 

Bellamy took a step forward, and then another. “You know what they say about us?” he asked her, his voice strangely low.

 

“Hmm?” Clarke asked. “What do they say?”

 

Bellamy was so close now that Clarke could feel her heart rate rising. “They say,” he said, “that we’re king and queen.”

 

Clarke wondered if she should say anything, but nothing came to mind.

 

“They call us that, you know,” he added slowly.

 

“I’ve heard,” she said.

 

Bellamy tilted his head to the side. “I don’t think,” he said, “that we quite fit the bill.”

 

Clarke swallowed. “Oh yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” he simply responded.

 

“Why’s that?” she asked, realizing that the space between them kept growing smaller and smaller.

 

Bellamy leaned in close to her face, but he didn’t do anything. “You tell me,” he murmured.

 

Before she knew it, Clarke had grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. He grasped her back, returning it with the same fervor.

 

-

 

When dawn broke over the camp, Clarke woke up to the sound of shouts from the beach.

 

Hurriedly, she pulled on her clothes and rushed out of the tent. In the distance she saw a ship on the water, and the kids were already building a fire to catch the attention of its crew.

 

She felt the grin break across her face, and a laugh filled the air from her lungs.

 

Beside her, a hand reached out for hers. Clarke glanced over at Bellamy, finding herself shocked that he would do such a thing, however small a gesture of kindness that it might have been. She squeezed his hand back, offering him the smallest of smiles in return.

 

“See, princess,” Bellamy said, turning to look out at the ocean. “We’re not so alone after all.”

 

Clarke turned her gaze back to the ship.

 

 _Just like you said_ , she thought, recalling what he had said once. _Just like you said_.

 

Silently, she squeezed his hand harder.

 

When she tore off running towards the beach, Bellamy followed her. He always followed her these days. He followed her everywhere. As they rushed onto the white sand of the beach, they grabbed torches and waved them into the sky. The ship changed course, heading for the island.

 

Clarke threw down her torch and threw her arms around Bellamy’s neck.

 

She hoped that wherever she went next, he followed her there, too.

 

 


End file.
